The advent of cloud-based computing architectures has opened new possibilities for the rapid and scalable deployment of virtual Web stores, media outlets, social networking sites, and many other on-line sites or services. In general, a cloud-based architecture deploys a set of hosted resources such as processors, operating systems, software and other components that can be combined together to form virtual machines. A user or customer can request the instantiation of a virtual machine or set of machines from those resources from a central server or cloud management system to perform intended tasks, services, or applications. For example, a user may wish to set up and instantiate a virtual server from the cloud to create a storefront to market products or services on a temporary basis, for instance, to sell tickets to or merchandise for an upcoming sports or musical performance. The user can subscribe to the set of resources needed to build and run the set of instantiated virtual machines on a comparatively short-term basis, such as hours or days, for their intended application.
Typically, when a user utilizes a cloud, the user must track the software applications executed in the cloud and/or processes instantiated in the cloud. For example, the user must track the cloud processes to ensure that the correct cloud processes have been instantiated, that the cloud processes are functioning properly and/or efficiently, that the cloud is providing sufficient resources to the cloud processes, and so forth. Due in part to the user's requirements and overall usage of the cloud, the user may have many applications and/or processes instantiated in a cloud at any given instant, and the user's deployment of virtual machines, software, and other resources can change dynamically over time. In cases, the user may also utilize multiple independent clouds to support the user's cloud deployment. That user may further instantiate and use multiple applications or other software or services inside or across multiple of those cloud boundaries, and those resources may be used or consumed by multiple or differing end-user groups in those different cloud networks.
In addition, cloud platforms exist or are envisioned today in which the user's desired virtual machines and software are received from a cloud marketplace system. In a cloud marketplace system, the user can transmit a software request to a cloud marketplace system, which acts as an intermediary between the user and a set of marketplace clouds. The marketplace clouds can receive the user's software request (or request for other resources), and submit a bid to the cloud marketplace system to supply or fulfill the software specified by the user. The cloud marketplace system can be configured to select the fulfillment bid from the marketplace clouds that satisfies the user's software request at lowest cost, and/or based on other decision logic.
In cloud marketplace systems, the set of clouds which deliver or provision the user's requested software or other resources can change over time, due to various reasons. For one, the marketplace clouds themselves may alter or withdraw the applications or other software which they are offering to users of the marketplace. For another, the user may wish to update their requested software or change any selection criteria they wish to apply to fulfillment bids received from clouds in the marketplace. As such, the set of provisioning clouds that are actually delivering or supporting the user's software deployment and/or other resources can shift or change over time, as existing clouds drop out and/or new clouds are substituted. The user can thus be supported by a sequence or progression of different clouds selected from the cloud marketplace, over time.
In the face of a potentially ever-shifting sequence of provisioning clouds, it may be a practical difficulty or inconvenience for the cloud marketplace system and/or user to be presented with a series of new clouds with which to register, and from which to extract usage and subscription data for billing or other purposes. It may be desirable to provide systems and methods for cross-cloud vendor mapping service in a dynamic cloud marketplace, in which the task of registering, storing, and aggregating the user's software usage history can be performed by an external mapping service configured to capture that history across a series of different provisioning clouds at different times, and aggregate billing and subscription data across different software, vendors, users, and clouds.